“Israel’s peace partner reaffirmed on Sunday that Palestinians convicted of selling land to Jews would face the death penalty for “high treason.”

PA officials claim the death penalty deters Arabs from selling land to Jews living in Judea and Samaria, which they envision free of Jewish residents in a future Palestinian state.

But one Palestinian affairs expert said while such laws may deter the sale of land, they give credence to the perception of Palestinian terrorism.

Dr. Hillel Frisch of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University said imposing the death penalty for the sale of land is “pretty stringent in the modern conception of human rights.”

“It certainly reflects that a Palestinian democracy has already been placed in the coffin a long time ago,” Dr. Frisch told CBN News. “The idea even of a semi-liberal state is long past us,” he said.